Young girl found family and love

Saturday

A little more than two years ago at Christmas, Natalya was in an orphanage in Odessa, Ukraine, waiting to be adopted.

What she didn’t know was that Brooke and John Newsome of Newport were on their way to Ukraine to adopt her.

In her first place-winning entry in the 2012 Newport Daily News Holiday Spirit essay contest, Natalya, now 12, recalls receiving the most timeless present possible.

“Christmas of 2010 brought me the best present ever — a family,” she wrote. “I waited a very long time for this gift … but this is a present that will last for the rest of my life.”

Natalya’s essay was submitted by Thompson Middle School teacher Lisa Olaynack, along with others written by her students.

Glenna Andrade of Portsmouth won second place with her essay recalling a memory from her childhood in Long Island — for the first time, experiencing selflessness by choosing a suitable gift for her grandmother.

She had a choice between a floral-print hanky and a strand of velvet ribbon, with which Andrade only pictured herself and not her grandmother.

“I was fascinated by the velvet ribbon then,” she says. “But I realized that my grandmother was probably not going to wear ribbon in her hair.” She chose the hanky, and credits her mother with allowing her that opportunity.

In her third-place essay, retired nurse Beth Milham of Newport described a family tradition that started when her Jewish father married her devoutly Catholic stepmother, Harriet, who went by “Hat.”

The tradition is decorating “Hat’s tree,” when Milham and close friends gather to have dinner, recreate a Christmas crèche, sing carols and trim the tree — a tradition that has continued even though Hat died in 1994.

“Little did we know that this would become a tradition that continues uninterrupted to this day, through many life changes for all the participants,” she wrote.

For the 23rd annual contest, a panel of Daily News editorial staff members chose three top essays from a diverse collection of personal and fictional stories and poems submitted by readers of all ages.

The winning essays — and a selection of others that were submitted — appear in a special section inside today’s paper.

The winners all seemed to share the theme of transition — of coming to a new place, of growing up, and of adapting beloved holiday traditions to fit the difficult transitions in life.

‘The Meaning of Christmas’

The Newsomes first heard about the orphanage in Ukraine when a friend told them about an opportunity to host an orphan from the Ukraine for part of a summer through New Horizons for Children Inc., an international hosting program that has five host groups from Ukraine and Latvia.

They jumped at the opportunity and spent three memorable weeks with an “unadoptable” Ukrainian girl who lived in the same orphanage as Natalya.

When Brooke and John expressed interest in adopting, they were introduced to Alina, who had spent three years in the orphanage before being adopted. The couple traveled to the orphanage with bags full of Christmas gifts for the children, complete with hats, gloves, toothbrushes and arts and crafts.

The orphanage is a “Soviet-style” building that being in was like “traveling back to 1940,” according to Brooke. Pictures of the facility show multiple beds in one room and a classroom next door. “It was cold and dirty but not always, and it was crowded with a lot of children and workers,” Natalya wrote.

The highest grade level at the orphanage is fourth, after which the children are transferred to the next level, where conditions are “not good,” according to Natalya. If a child is not adopted by the time she is 16 years old, she is released. There is the option of attending trade school, but it is rarely taken, with teenagers often turning to alcoholism, prostitution or even suicide.

“It’s amazing what the government is allowed to do,” Brooke said. “It’s a very poor country where alcoholism is prevalent. Some parents are just neglectful.”

It turns out that Natalya’s orphanage was one of the better ones in the Ukraine. “Most take donations for themselves and pocket them. This one at least takes them and uses them for the kids,” Brooke said.

The Newsomes were introduced to Alina and her best friend Natalya, spending three weeks getting to know them. They traveled back to America with Alina, leaving Natalya to wait for a family.

Six months later, the Newsomes returned, approached Natalya and asked if she wanted to be a part of their family. Before they could finish, “Da! Da! Da!” was all she had to say.

Today, the Newsomes, which include Alina, 11, Natalya (or Ayla, as she is now referred to) and Lera — the latest addition to the family, also from the Ukraine — are inseparable. Although John, the owner of One-Eighty Restaurant, considers himself a “slave” to the restaurant industry and Brooke works full-time in community relations at Salve Regina University, they said they always take time to make time together.

“If (Brooke and I) both worked nine-to-five, it would be tougher. But we always make it a point to have dinner together,” he said. “We squeeze it all in.”

When asked why her story was an important one to tell for the holidays, Natalya replied: “Christmas doesn’t mean you get all of the presents. It’s about family.” Brooke recalled her daughters’ confusion when experiencing gift-giving during the holidays for the first time, saying, “It’s Jesus’s birthday. Why are we getting presents?”

After hosting Vika, 10, and her younger sister Yana, 7, through New Horizons this summer, the Newsomes plan to return to the Ukraine to adopt them.

Velvet, or violets?

Only upon reflection does Glenna Andrade, a retired Roger Williams University professor, realize the important lesson her mother taught her the day she picked out a gift from Woolworth’s for her grandmother. “Truly, this was a new task. In my long experience of Christmases, I’d always received presents, never given one,” she wrote.

“I don’t think my mother meant to teach me a lesson until it came to that decision,” she said.

With children of her own living now in Florida and California, she has been a frequent entrant in the annual Holiday Spirit contest. “I always wrote about my children at Christmas, but this year, they encouraged me to write about me,” she said.

In fact, one of her stories won second place in the contest in 2005. It was about turning old socks into sock puppets for Christmas gifts for her children. “It was about making something of my own to give to them,” she said. “It was a reflection on how some gifts are from the heart.”

Similar to that story, her essay this year is about the life transitions of a 5-year-old and feeling the pressure to give to someone else, rather than receive. “I don’t think we (teach that to children) anymore,” she said.

Andrade also noted another transition that day, when her mother allowed her to “waltz around the store” all by herself. “This visit to the ‘Five-and-Dime’ had been my first time in a store alone,” she wrote.

“I wasn’t going to go anywhere. It was entirely safe back then,” she said.

Ultimately, it was the act of thinking of someone else that has stayed with Andrade “… the real present that Christmas was not the hanky, not even the experience of giving to another,” she wrote, “but … the gift of allowing a child to decide between being selfish or being able to think about another person’s wants or needs.”

Decorating Hat’s tree

Beth Milham, the third place-winner, preferred to reflect upon a longstanding tradition that she and her friends most recently held at the beginning of December, “It’s a tradition that has weathered all of the transitions in our lives,” she said.

Every year, Milham and the other “elves” decorate a small tree in memory of Hat. “It’s very definitely a memorial for her,” she said.

Growing up, even before the tradition began, Milham says that her Jewish father always had a tree for her. Although her father liked Christmas and played Santa Claus at the Christmas party at which he and Hat met, “Hat always felt as though he didn’t appreciate Christmas as much as we did. So it turned into a girls thing,” she said.

After her death, Hat’s memorials stretched beyond just the tree. Close friends planted a tree in her honor, which always was lit up in the backyard. Hat also had a Christmas cactus that only began blooming after she had died. “We always thought, maybe she found the answer (to how to make it grow) when she died,” Milham said.

Holding strong to the tradition helped Hat’s family and friends get through difficult times, Milham said. The “girls” already have set the specific date for the next year.

“Things keep changing and you try to make them work as best as you can. This one has just continued,” she said. “It’s a constant that we all treasure.”

The three winners will receive cash prizes, which in the spirit of the season, will be shared with the charity of their choice.

Natalya will share her prize of $150 with New Horizons.

Andrade has chosen to share her prize of $100 with Lucy’s Hearth, a shelter for women and their children in Middletown, which is close to her heart after helping to establish a home for battered women. “They do a lot of good work,” she said.

Milham will donate her whole prize of $50 to Green Congregation Committee, an energy committee through Channing Memorial Church. She said she hopes to raise awareness in the community and support for developing “greener” habits.

Melanie Puckett is the editorial assistant for The Daily News. Send her email at Newsroom@NewportRI.com.

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